Random Thoughts

Brett's in California and although I've talked to a lot of people throughout today, I've still got some words left in me. I usually talk Brett to death at night, so I'll get my words out through blogging!

Thought #1. Why did we move here???? Right now it is snowing and there are 50 mile an hour winds insanely blowing snow all over the place. I wanted to take pictures to post, but it's so stinking cold that I don't want to open a door or window to stick my camera out to show you how nasty this is. Looking on the bright side, I am so thankful we have a nice warm house.

Thought #2. Today my brother turned 34 and he was genuinely happy about getting older. He said he honestly enjoys having birthdays and getting older. How many people do you know that like getting older? I'm going to try and have his attitude about aging. Not that I hate getting older, but most people view it as a negative thing, so I'm going to try embracing it.

Thought #3. Cable/phone/internet is ridiculously expensive. Our Comcast introductory rate went up and so I've been pricing each thing with different companies and have come to realize it's just expensive no matter what. Remember when we used to watch TV with rabbit ears and got only a few stations on fuzzy tiny tvs and it was free? Now it's $100 for a decent channel lineup and then they really get you with the taxes. Who thinks of all these taxes? They sneak them all in and they're all small but they add up.

Thought #4. I love blogs. There is no better way to procrastinate than blogging. You can write your random thoughts or you can stalk other blogs and see their random thoughts. I love looking at friends blogs and the blogs linked to their blogs. I could accomplish so much more each day if I didn't have the internet to check out blogs, shop, email, check the weather, etc. I love procrastinating.

Thought #5. When you have to type in verification on security pages (buying tickets on ticketmaster, blogs, etc.) are those real words that come up or are they just random letters? I'm not a spelling bee champ or anything and my verbal score on the SAT was not my higher score, but are those really words? On occasion I'll recognize a word, but mostly they seem like jumbled letters. Anyone out there know what I'm talking about?

Thanks for reading my last words left in me tonight. Now I can get ready for bed!

Heat Wave

Who'd ever thought I would think it was such a warm day when it's 30 degrees outside?!? Today we were driving home and we had the sun roof open because it was such a warm beautiful day at a whopping 30 degrees. You see, it's been below freezing for the high for the last 10 or so days and has been below zero or at least a wind chill below zero for 10 days and now my warped mind thinks 30 is warm. What's up with that? I never in a million years imagined myself living in a climate where snow boots, hats, scarves, & gloves were an everyday necessity. I guess I'm adjusting pretty well if I can handle an open sun roof at 30.

Despite the cold, wind and snow we are staying busy. Friday we went bowling with Maddi's dance group. Their teacher rewarded them for working so hard on their competition dances. It was packed at the bowling alley at 4:30 on a Friday. I guess that's what people do in the winter.
Saturday the kids went to a Hawaiian Luau at the Healthplex where they went swimming, made crafts and played games. Brett and I went on a date and had dinner and saw Juno. Awesome movie. Highly recommend it.

Sunday we went to church and had lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy. It just opened 4 days ago and I couldn't wait to eat there. I'm sure there are 5 million great Italian places here, but it was nice to have a place we know from Texas. It was quite tasty. I LOVE the Vera's Lemon Cookies. I seriously think I could eat 5 dozen of them. (They're small crescent shaped, so 5 dozen isn't that much, right?) All we need now is a Chick Fil A and I'll be good to go!

Sunday afternoon the kids had a Birthday Party for their Build a Bears. Maddi made a cake with her Easy Bake oven. Let me just tell you that they don't make the Easy Bake mixes like they used to. My memory is that they were quite tasty. Not so these days.

Maddi is getting so big reading and following the Easy Bake directions all by herself.
The kids made their own table for the party. They used a box with Cade's Lego's for the table. The place mat is his surf board he made at the Luau last night and the legs of the table are the plastic containers for Barraki's. Next to Cade are some presents Maddi wrapped for the party.
Cade with "hot dog" the birthday dog. He woke up this morning and announced it was hot dogs birthday. Don't know why he came up with that, but anyway....He also changed the dogs name last night. See "hot dog" used to be "Bat Dog" because when he made him at Build a Bear he chose the batman costume for him. Then he bought the Spider Man costume and decided his name should be "Spider Dog". Last night he wanted him "naked" because he doesn't have pajamas for the dog and decided since he wasn't wearing batman or spiderman he should be called "Hot Dog". He can always be "hot dog" no matter what he's wearing. Ok, whatever Cade.


I'll leave you with another kid conversation in the car today:
Cade to Maddi: Does this look creepy? (pulling the corner of his eyes toward his ears)

Maddi: You look like a freak.

Cade: When Kya (Cade's friend) does that you can see his brain. In real life you can see all the way to his brain.

Maddi and Cade are cracking up.

Maddi (now pulling her eyes back): Can you see my brain?

And they continue making gross faces the next 5 minutes in the car. You know they say each generation is so different but I have a feeling that making strange faces is one thing every generation has enjoyed. Why is that so fun to kids?

Cade's Medal

Cade had his last day of gymnastics for this session and they took turns doing a trick and got their medal. I missed the beginning of his cartwheel, but here's what I did get.

He wanted to quit gymnastics for a while and is now taking karate. He likes it so far and it's just another way to stay active since we don't go outside much in the winter. After his first day at karate he got in the car and was talking about what he liked about the class, etc. and he said "I have no idea what they are saying." I just make sounds. I accidentally signed him up for the advanced class so he's with kids that have been doing it two years or so. I guess those kids learned what to say at the beginning. Karate is not my thing, so I can't help him with karate talk! The teacher said he can stay in the advanced class because he's catching on quick and the beginner class doesn't work for our schedule.

Maddi's Room

For those of you who've been asking....here is a pic of Maddi's room. It's not finished. Only that one wall has the chair rail up as you can see behind the bed by the curtains. Maybe this weekend we (did I say we, I meant Brett) can get it done. Although the temperature is only going to be a high of 0-5 degrees, so I don't really see Brett going out in the garage cutting wood. Once the chair rail is up, we can hang the shelves, pictures, etc.

Cade, who is the most impatient of children, (where does he get that from? hmmm) really wants us to paint his room. One day we'll get to that. Let us finish this room and then we can move on!

More from the kids for the blog

I'm sitting here on the computer checking email, the weather, etc. and I over hear Cade and his friend talking:

Cade: You know, we're not just staying here you know. We're going somewhere, to aerobics.

Friend: Cool! What's aerobics?

Cade: A place my mom goes to exercise so she's not fat.

Friend: Oh, my mom already is real fat.

Cade: NO, she's not.

Friend: Yes, she is. She really is.

Don't you just love kids?!? They will always say just what they think.

On another note, Maddi has warned me that I will be "THAT MOM." I told her I put money on her card for the dance snack bar but she can't get candy or cokes and they wrote that on the card, so don't try to buy that. She said, why did you do that? I explained that candy and coke are okay sometimes but when when needs a snack at dance she needs something that will give her energy and candy and coke won't give you energy. To which she replied, "You know, if you do stuff like that, you're going to be known as "THAT MOM." How does she know these things? I assured her that I heard other moms talking about how they did the same thing and that actually gave me the idea to do the same for her so I'm not the only "that mom" at dance.

Gotta love them!

Hair and Makeup, Football and Bibles

Friday night we had "hair and makeup night" at dance. Maddi has been waiting for this day since we signed up to be in company. We learned the new hairstyle for this year. Yes, I'm serious. We have step by step directions on how to create "THE SWOOP POUF". We didn't take any pictures because I clearly need more practice on this 'do. It's a low bun on the side of the head with a pouf. It's actually very pretty, but I need lots of practice. Maddi has very thin/fine hair and it's really hard to work with. We also had lessons on proper eye shadow and eyeliner application. If you've been in dance then you'll understand that everyone must be uniform in appearance. It seems crazy for such a young age, but Maddi loves it so that makes it fun. Saturday we had some of our neighbors over for the Packers football playoff game. We are taking turns having the games at neighbors houses including Super Bowl. One of our neighbors is a die hard Packers fan and we were looking forward to a friendly rivalry with Green Bay and Dallas this weekend, but Dallas let us down. Ugh.

In this picture above Molly was painting nails with Grace and Maddi. Notice Maddi and Grace have beautiful makeup on with the makeup artist being Maddi for both of them.
Maddi and Grace were making up dances and put on some of Maddi's costumes. Maddi is wearing her production costume for this year. Production is wear all of the dancers in the company are in a dance. This years theme is "love is in the air" and all the dancers have different costumes in red, pink, silver or purple.
Sunday was kindergarten Bible day at church. All of the kindergarteners got a Bible and the parents and children went to four stations around the room to learn ways of how to make learning about the Bible fun for the family. The picture above shows Cade fishing for a disciple to teach them about being "fishers of men".
The next station was Route 66 for the 66 books in the Bible. They had to race to get puzzle pieces and put a puzzle together. The dad wore a racing hat and they were the pit crew to help if they needed it and the moms had racing flags to cheer our children on and support them. It was a cute idea and the kids enjoyed it. Cade's been making sure we read his Bible everyday, what a good boy!

Did you know....

So this was the conversation in our car this evening:

Maddi: Did you know that dogs get married?

Pam: Whaaaat?????

Maddi: Well, they have to get married to have babies.

Pam: Yeah, I guess. Maybe dogs don't have to be married.

Maddi: But humans do so how can dogs have babies and not be married.

Pam: That's a good question. I never really thought about that. (change of subject) Tell me about your dance you learned in hip hop today.

So many questions and I keep struggling for answers. When do we let her in on the birds and the bees? Parenting is so fun and always keeps you on your toes!

Christmas with Grampa and Texas Grammy

We had a great time when Brett's Dad and Step Mom came to visit for a few days between Christmas and New Year's. Grampa is showing off part of his Christmas gift which was an oversize universal remote control. The kids thought it was the funniest thing they've ever seen, especially since they are of the generation where everything is so small. They never saw our cell phones that were as big as bricks.
Cade is the Lego maniac. He got a lot of Legos for Christmas and he spent many hours putting the sets together. Grampa spent 2 or so days with Cade putting together the Batman set Santa gave him. I'm not sure who had more fun, Grampa or Cade.
Maddi and Texas Grammy were scrapbooking machines. Maddi would barely let her rest and then beg to scrapbook some more.
While Grampa and Texas Grammy were here we got some snow. Grammy helped us make some snowmen while Grampa stayed in and worked on the Batman Lego set. This was Cade's snowman.
Maddi with her two snow people.
Texas Grammy found a recipe online for snow ice cream. We put lots of caramel, hot fudge and strawberries to try and mask the flavor. I didn't have the right ingredients and we tried substitutions and let's just say that neither of the kids ate theirs even with all the junk on it.
Trying to get a group picture with the kids and grandparents and Cade was not exactly cooperating so they tried tickling to get a smile. What a fun visit! The kids were very sad to see them go.
Maddi and Cade took a break from playing with the completed Batman set for a picture. Cade would get frustrated with Maddi because she doesn't know the story of Batman and wouldn't do things just right. At least she was playing with him and was actually really into Batman.


This is what Dads are for! You wont find me out there pulling them around on sleds. Dads are just so much more fun!

Happy New Year!!

No pictures, I forgot to take my camera, but we ushered in the new year with friends and neighbors. We started at our first party at 4:00 with our neighbors right around us. We left there around 8:30 and would have been happy to go home and get some rest, but we had another party to attend. We went down the street a bit to a wilder and crazier party with lots of kids and karaoke and stayed until after 1:00 a.m. The kids were having a blast with all their friends and we were entertained with adults embarrassing themselves on the karaoke machine. Cade actually slept until 9:15 (I'm pretty sure that's a first). We had to wake Maddi up at about 9:30 to take a shower so we could meet some friends for lunch by the airport. I had a glimpse into the future of what life will be like in a few years when Maddi has stayed up to late with friends. It's not pretty. We ate with Erin and Jeff who live in Wisconsin and finally met their new baby.

Now we are looking forward to laying around and resting to prepare for the new year with the same crazy schedules that's coming our way. Maddi is back to dance tomorrow with 3 or 4 hours of practice with a birthday party tomorrow night. Brett is back to work and we can all try to figure out what day of the week it is as we get back to our normal routine.

Happy New Year 2008!